Ahold Names Former Philips Executive CFO

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, March 10, 2003

Global grocery retailer Ahold has appointed a new chief financial officer in the wake of its recently-disclosed accounting scandal.

The company said Tuesday it has named Dudley Eustace, a former chief financial officer at Dutch electronics maker Philips, as interim CFO.

Ahold's chief executive and chief financial officers resigned in late February after the company said a U.S. subsidiary overstated income by more than $500 million in 2001 and 2002.

Ahold's stock plummeted but the company was able to counter talk it was headed for bankruptcy by arranging 3 billion euros ($3.1 billion) in credit from a group of banks, using its Dutch and U.S. assets as collateral.

The U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission, and parallel Dutch institutions, are investigating Ahold for bookkeeping irregularities.

"My priority is to stabilize the financial fundamentals of Ahold and to assist in the recruitment of a permanent full-time chief financial officer for the business, hopefully by the end of the year," Eustace said in a statement.

Ahold is currently run by the chairman of its supervisory board, Henny de Ruiter.

Eustace is supervisory chairman of Smith & Nephew plc, a British maker of medical devices. He will continue his duties at Smith & Nephew while overseeing the financial restructuring at Ahold.

Eustace, a British national, was a member of the board of the former Dutch national telecom KPN in 2001, when it successfully weathered a financial crisis.